protection
by tessannejansen
Summary: The sequel to "no more". It's been a while after Rose and Dimitri broke up, while they have to teach at St. Vladimir's academy for a semester, together. Meanwhile Lissa and Christian have to prepare for their wedding and drama happens at Court. Lissa, being the Queen has to find the balance between Queen Vasilisa and friend and fiancee Lissa. Will she manage?
1. prologue

I had finished packing my stuff. Dimitri and I had promised Kirova that we'd be teachers at St. Vladimir's academy. The whole group followed us. Christian and Mia joined us so they could have a greater part in their Moroi fighting class. Sonya Karp would go back to teaching at the academy, as a Spirit user she would help the other spirit user students. Mikhail Tanner became an academy guardian again, because he followed Sonya Karp. Lissa wanted to return to the academy too. She could work from there too, though we would need to go back to Court sometimes. Eddie followed her as her guardian, so the only one missing was Adrian. He was somewhere in the north of the country, I don't know what he was doing.

I looked forward to be teaching at the academy, but I would be teaching with Dimitri, so that would be hard. It was a month after the break up and of course we now work together too, but not all the time. Well, I could do it, like I always can do.

The others already were at Lissa and Christian's apartment so we were ready to go. Of course we took a few guardians with us, because Lissa always needed to be guarded, even at the academy. We walked to the plane, which was just big enough for all of us. Dimitri and I were forced to sit together and however I tried to ignore that, him being near me still made me feel nervous. how he sat there, reading his western novel.

We landed at the airport of the academy after a few hours. Dimitri and I walked in silence towards Kirova's office. Dimitri knocked on the door and after a "Come in," we walked inside.

Kirova sat behind her desk, as always. She smiled when she saw us.

"Welcome Guardian Belikov and Guardian Hathaway. It's good to see you two here," she said. "I think you have read the letter we sent you?"

Dimitri and I nodded. Of course we had read it.

"Then I guess you know what we ask of you?" she asked.

"yes," I said.

"Good. Can you please sign the contract then?"

Dimitri signed his one first and then he gave me the pen. Our fingers accidentally touched and I still felt that spark. I dared to look at him to see that I just imagined it, but what I saw was different...

I saw that he still loved me.

 **author's note: finally, the sequel to no more. I know I took a while for writing this, and you may have thought that I wasn't going to write the sequel to no more, but here it is.  
**

 **I hope you'll enjoy it :)**


	2. Chapter 1

After our meeting with headmistress Kirova, Dimitri and I went to see Alberta –eh, Guardian Petrov- so we would know who we would be teaching. She told us about the two students that would need us as their mentor. They were both good, but missed a small part in attitude. Dimitri and I would be teaching two girls. Both were different of course, but both had the same thing in common; they both had the potential in being really good Guardians.

Leila was a 15 year old girl and raised by the Keepers, who believed that 'our kind' of Dhampirs and Moroi lived the wrong way. We did separate ourselves from the humans, except the feeders of course, and the Dhampirs are the one who protect the Moroi. It has always been like this for centuries, but there are groups out there who live the other way. Those groups are groups with human, Dhampirs and Moroi living all together, all equal. The Moroi and human fight too, like the Dhampirs. The human are not only seen as feeder, but as someone equal to the rest.

Leila's dossier didn't say anything about her reason to decide to leave the Keepers, but fact was that most of the Keepers were good fighters. While Leila too was a good fighter, she missed a part of the technique, which is what Dimitri and I had to teach her.

The other girl, Cora, was also 15 years old. While reading her dossier she reminded me of myself when I was younger. Her grades told me that she was a good fighter, but the rest of her grades weren't that good. There were several notes of her being a troublemaker, not paying attention during her other classes and she was a bit rude to teachers sometimes. Dimitri and I would try to teach her a different attitude, the attitude that she would need, if she wanted to become a Guardian.

While both Dimitri and I had read the dossiers, Alberta spoke again.

"Do you have any questions?" she asked.

"No," was my answer. Dimitri only shook his head.

Alberta smiled. "Well, if you don't have anything against it, I thought you will want to meet the girls before training starts?" she asked.

I nodded. I was curious about the two girls.

"You can meet them when classes are over. Training will start an hour later, to give them some time for themselves. I'm sure they want to meet the two of you too. It'll be a sort of first training, but don't be too hard to them, this is the first time," she said.

Dimitri nodded. "where will we meet them? The gym?" he asked.

Alberta nodded. " Oh, I almost forgot. Before you go to your rooms and settle down, since you now are staff members, we kind of expect you to have shifts too," she said before Dimitri an d I took our stuff.

I nodded, kind of concerned. How would I have time to guard Lissa?

Alberta seemed to read my expression. "Rose, Moroi usually don't need Guardians during their time at the academy. I think Queen Vasilisa is an exception. During your absence she has guardians, but I think you still want to guard her when you have time?" She asked.

"Of course," I said without thinking. "But, I will have to take shifts here too, right?"

Alberta shook her head. "No, if you will guard Lissa, and teach the students, you don't have to do the shifts."

I smiled. "Thank you, Guardian Petrov."

Then Dimitri spoke. "Will I have shifts or will I guard Lord Ozera?" he asked.

"We have enough scool guardians, so you can guard or help Lord Ozera if you want, though we can ask you, same for you Rose, to take a shift."

We nodded. Of course we understood.

Alberta smiled at us. "That was what I had to tell you. Do you have other things you like to know?"

We shook our head.

"Then you can settle down in your dorm and go to the gym after the classes end."

I unpacked my stuff in a short time. Of course I didn't take much stuff with me, so I was done quickly. When I was done unpacking, I knocked on Lissa's and Christians door.

A smiling Lissa opened the door. "Christian is with Mia to the fighting club of them and I sent the guardians off for a while, so we have some time together. Just the two of us, like it used to be."

I smiled. It was a while ago since we were together with the two of us. We talked for a few hours. Since we came here in the morning and classes ended 3am, we had quiet a lot time.

"Rose?" Lissa asked after a short silence.

"Yes?"

"Are you happy?"

I thought about it for a while. "Yes, I am. I have a great job, protecting you with Eddie. Our group of friends stayed together, all at Court. I have the life I always wanted," I said. It wasn't a lie, but it wasn't the full truth either. I was happy, I had a great life, but I was still heartbroken after the break up with Dimitri. He broke up with me while I just tried to protect him from more pain, and I was afraid to lose him.

"Rose," Lissa said.

"Yes."

"Are you being honest?"

"Yes, of course," I half lied.

I glanced at the clock, noticing it was time to go.

"I have to head to the gym," I excused myself.

I went back to my dorm, changed into my training clothes and headed towards the gym. Of course Dimitri already was there, reading one of his western novels. He only nodded when I came in and continued reading.

I tried to hide the hurt I felt after that.


	3. Chapter 2

Leila and Cora walked into the gym together. Their chatting fell silent when they noticed Dimitri and I. They froze for a second, before they walked towards us.

The girl on the left must be Leila, the formal keeper. She looked more like the Keepers that Dimitri and I met, while we were running away from the guardians that wanted to kill me.

Dimitri, having more experience with teaching than I had, started.

"Welcome girls. You know why you're here, I suppose?" he asked.

Leila nodded, while Cora only looked bored.

"I think it's the best to start with running and work outs. Those will be with the four of us. Guardian Hathaway and I will train with you. When we're going to do the combat, we will do that separated with one to one training. Guardian Hathaway and I will train the both of you," Dimitri continued.

It annoyed me that Dimitri didn't talk to me about this, that he didn't ask my opinion. Not that I didn't agree with him, I would have come with a similar plan, but the fact that he thought he could decide for the both of us annoyed me.

"Okay," I said, "we'll start with running a few laps, to see how good your condition is."

Cora groaned. "Why do we have to run? I thought we were here to learn how to fight."

"No, you are here to learn how to survive," Dimitri said.

"But..."

"Listen Cora, I know where you are coming from," I interrupted her, "But Guardian Belikov is right. It can safe your life, and the life of your Moroi when you are a fast runner."

Cora groaned again, but started running, following Leila.

While the girls were doing their laps, I walked to Dimitri.

"So, what is your plan with the girls?" I asked.

"To train them just how I trained you, first running and work outs, later the martial arts."

"Okay, tell me what I have to do then."

I knew I was acting childish, and that Dimitri would use this against me, but at the moment I didn't care.

"Rose, this is not the time to act childish," he said.

"No, listen, Comrade, that our relationship didn't work out doesn't mean that you can treat me like I'm your student again, because I'm not. We are equals now and I wanted to do this with you, together, not me doing what you say I have to do."

"We always were equals Rose, and I'm not trying to boss around, I'm just doing my job. Besides, you said that you agreed with me, about the running," he said.

"I do agree, but that isn't my point. My point is that you think you can decide everything without asking my opinion on it," I snapped.

Cora and Leila came back just when Dimitri wanted to reply on my comment, which forced him to shut his mouth. He quickly wore his emotionless mask again, which I tried to do too.

Leila looked pretty relaxed, considering she just had ran a few laps. Cora however was panting and really out of breath. I made a mental note to let Cora train a bit more, to focus a lot on her condition. We could start with the combat for Leila earlier.

After a short break we let the girls do some workouts before Dimitri dismissed them.

I left right after the girls, walking towards my room, without saying a word to Dimitri. I didn't want to fight with Dimitri. I would never say it out loud, but I wanted that things between us would be like it was before. I wanted to wake up next to him, to train with him, to be with him. Sometimes, when I can't sleep and take a walk, I walk past his room and sometimes I hear he has a nightmare again. Moments like those I just want to walk in his room and comfort him. I can't do that, and I walk past his room and the next day, when I see he is wearing his mask again, pretending he slept well and isn't haunted by the nightmares and the past, I regret I didn't walk in the night before.

The next day I apologized to Dimitri, because I was hurt, because I missed him, though I wouldn't admit that.

The weeks went by. Dimitri and I trained the girls. We agreed to focus on condition for Cora and getting more to the combat for Leila. Sometimes we trained with them, since we also had to keep training.

Leila was dedicated; she really wanted to learn everything she had to learn. This resulted in her being too focused and wanting too fast. She was a bit like the Keepers Dimitri and I met when we were on the run. While we just worked with Leila for a week, we learned that she is a quickstudy. Cora caused us a lot more trouble. She reminded me of my 15 year old self. The Rose before things started with Victor Dashkov stalking Lissa, which made me take Lissa outsides the guards of the school.

Cora, like I did these days, cared more about parties and everything but classes, especially her training. It was mainly Dimitri who dealt with her, because he was much more patient than I was. At the other hand, he also was more strict than I was.

It may have taken a while, but slowly we were finding our way with the girls and with each other.

 **Author's note: I'm sorry for not updating for so long. I have been busy with school and stuff, while I have written a few chapters. I'll try to update once in the 2 weeks.**


End file.
